


Second Generation

by jeffcatson



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Ghosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-22 16:04:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6086062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeffcatson/pseuds/jeffcatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miss Giddy wakes up to a washed-out blue landscape.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Generation

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [olderladiesfemslashfest](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/olderladiesfemslashfest) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
>  
> 
> They both nurture things, that others would prefer never grew.

 

Miss Giddy wakes up to a washed-out blue landscape: the dust blowing quietly from horizon to horizon, the sun gentle behind a haze of clouds, the roar of engines replaced by a deep silence.

Angharad is nowhere to be seen.

She makes to walk over to the dunes that had held the deep tire-tracks from the Gigahorse, and finds that she can get up easily, that her first few steps along the sand are smooth: as smooth as breathing, as thinking, as the way that Angharad and the girls had threaded together new ideas from the old histories she’d told them.

It takes her a few more moments to realise that, for the first time in as long as she can remember: nothing on her hurts. She rolls a hip experimentally, and it’s as easy as she’d run across warm, soft sands as a girl: no twinges, no tell-tale crackling of the joint as it shudders through its arc.

Well: she’s never been one to shy away from the truth. Always better to have knowledge, even if that knowledge is difficult or painful: that’s what she’s always told the girls, and, bless them, the five of them had always faced difficulties head-on. Their lives more painful than anything Miss Giddy could have imagined, but it hadn’t been for her to tell them what they could and couldn’t deal with. They survived, the lot of them together, and that’s what had mattered.

Now, alone in the sands, not a soul close by her for the first time in years, she lifts up her hands, and looks down: at her palms, through her palms, down to the wind-mussed earth, every line swept into the sand showing clear to her careful gaze.

That’s that, then.

She is here, and Angharad is not. Miss Giddy hopes that means that Angharad is all right. Even if she’s not all right, Miss Giddy tells herself, perhaps she can find some way to help. Something in this landscape, or something from her own mind, from decades of history filed away as neat as the lines on her skin: she’ll see her right. It’s half Miss Giddy’s doing that the lot of them were out here anyway -

Miss Giddy is far too old to cry. Between all she’s seen and all she’s done, the lives she’s watched be snuffed out or wasted away, and her own self always safe and tight-kept in the treasure vault, with the piano, the books, the rest of the Immortan’s treasures - well, there’s never been any use crying. Now, thinking back to her schoolroom conversations with the girls, their treasonous whispers growing bolder every passing year, and herself, all the while, tending the spark, cultivating it, nodding as Angharad had spoken fierce rebellion to her sisters: oh, she’ll be forgiven if it’s an abrupt cough that escapes her, a sharp sobbing breath, before she straightens up once again and looks out at the horizon.

They had chosen this. They’d planned this, carried it out: she may have sheltered the tinder, but it had been the sisters who had fed the spark into a blaze. Once Angharad - and she smiles now to think of her, her anger, her protectiveness - had gotten an idea into her mind, not even the combined power of all the Immortan’s forces could have shaken it. The sisters had chosen this, and worked for it: had decided, together, that it was better to brave the dangers of the wasteland than it was to stay kept in a cage. Giddy only hopes they’ve found some kind of shelter out here.

The Gigahorse’s tracks are nowhere to be seen: watching the wind blow sand softly over the earth’s surface, Giddy understands. It must have been quite some time.

She’s not tired, and she’s not thirsty: Miss Giddy can see no reason she’d need to lie down again out here. She chooses a direction, and walks.

*

There’s someone else out here.

Miss Giddy hasn’t seen another old woman in years. The only women the Immortan had brought back were young and fertile: once they’d outlasted their use, they’d been cast out to survive among the people living in the tower’s shadow. Only Furiosa had lived in the Citadel long enough for Giddy to watch grey streaks appear in her hair, to see engine grease become stuck in the deepening lines around her eyes.

This woman is far older than Furiosa: perhaps even as old as Miss Giddy herself. Giddy’s face is covered in knowledge, inked in dark lines parallel to her own wrinkles: these last few years, she’d had to stretch out little sections with her fingers, leaning up close to the vault’s mirror to read her notes. This woman’s face is bare, and no less lined, and Miss Giddy has a sudden feeling that she carries just as much history in those lines, tucked close under her skin, as Giddy herself.

She’s killed everyone she’s ever met out here. The woman says this sharp and loud, obviously meant to be threatening, but Miss Giddy can’t help herself: she smiles, and at the sight of a twitch in the other woman’s cheek, she breaks out into full-on laughter. The two of them hold on to each other, laughing, gasping for breath: occasionally one or the other mimes the snap and recoil of a gun, and that sets them off again.

They’ve gone to the Citadel, the woman says once the two of them have regained some breath. They’ve gone to take it back, along with her own sisters: the last of her band of wasteland warriors, motorcycles piled high with blankets and seeds and guns.

Miss Giddy squares her shoulders. Her girls had gone to retake that nightmare? Well: then that was where she would go, too.

*

They walk, and Miss Giddy tells Keeper about her girls. Keeper hadn’t met Angharad, but she nods knowingly to hear of Angharad’s ferocity and will, the way she’d carried the others aloft on her righteous anger: her determination that they would survive, that they would make it out of there. How Angharad had hounded Furiosa for more stories of her Green Place, and insisted Giddy join them and share her own stories.

There was Capable, standing solid behind Angharad, thoughtful and logical and with an endless well of kindness: she would braid and re-braid Cheedo’s hair, sit with her and stroke her head as they listened to Giddy’s stories. After the others had fallen asleep, Capable would ask questions of Miss Giddy: clarifications on her history, and more details, always wanting to tease out the full story.

The sisters seemed to have an unspoken pact to keep the worst of it all from Cheedo: they shared a determination that her sunny smile and gentle heart be not bruised by harsher truths. When Capable walked in limping, or Angharad came to Giddy with another wound to be bandaged, she had fixed them up away in the side bedroom: they’d returned to sit quietly in the larger space, to listen to Cheedo play piano or the Dag read aloud.

The Dag had been all sharp corners and wild, directionless anger: where Angharad would focus in her rage, knife-sharp, upon the Immortan, and turn it into plans and ideas, the Dag would instead lash out in all directions when she’d gotten into one of her moods. It was worst of all the day that she and Giddy had counted up her moon-bleeds and found a terrible answer: she’d stalked off to hide in the farthest, darkest corner she could find, and hadn’t said a word to anyone else all night.

Toast was the newest addition to the vault, and the one about whom Giddy had worried the least. Toast was all sharp practicality and sardonic asides: she snapped at the Immortan’s boys when they’d first come to collect her, and just as harshly at Miss Giddy when she’d fussed over her on her return. Giddy imagined she’d also snapped at the Immortan, all sharp tongue and teeth in a tiny, wiry frame, her coiled-up rage and quick, searching eyes. She hoped the Immortan watched his back while Toast was around, and had smiled to imagine him locking away weapons before her arrival.

Keeper listens, listens to all her stories as they walk, and smiles and laughs in all the right places. Keeper’s too old, too, Giddy thinks, to dwell too much on pain: better that the two of them share stories of the girls creating happiness for themselves, or fighting for each other, all fierce and powerful. They’d all spent enough time helpless: better to retell their stories of strength.

*

The sun rises, palest blue in a pale blue sky, and sets, leaving the women walking alone through a darker blue landscape, deep grey shadows marking out rocks and dunes. There are no lizards, no vehicles: nothing to break up the endless still sands, and Giddy’s voice fills up the silence, fills it up with stories and memories and hopeful speculation. At some point, Keeper reaches out to wind their hands together, and that’s how they continue, sharing warmth and presence and words.

*

They walk, and Keeper tells Miss Giddy about her girls. How the lot of them had smiled to meet the older, land-weathered women that were Keeper’s sisters; how they’d tried on and laughed over the solid, heavy garments offered by the Vuvalini, delighting in having a choice of shapes and colours. That they’d fought together, making up for a lack of experience with the kind of seamless teamwork that she’d seen warriors train for years to develop.

Keeper had known the girls for only a few short days, but Miss Giddy feels her heart swell with a mixture of envy and pride. Keeper had known them free: had seen how they could fight, had witnessed the very beginnings of their exploring who they could be when they weren’t kept treasures. What could they have been, in a world that valued their kindness and competence even half as much as their bodies? What could they become in this world, if Miss Giddy’s quiet hopes were realised and they were, indeed, all right?

Keeper seems to read her thoughts: she moves Giddy’s hand to her other hand and squeezes it, and wraps her free arm around her, stroking her shoulders, pulling her close. She knows this, too: it’s bittersweet, to hear of your daughters becoming strong, but doing so far away. They don’t stop walking, and Keeper doesn’t stop speaking: tells, her, instead, of a young Furiosa; her shaky first steps under dense-blooming trees, hiding in bushes and helping the Vuvalini plant seeds.

*

Miss Giddy spots the Citadel in the distance, becoming larger with each one of their passing steps, and she’s the first to realise: it’s not coloured with washed-out blue. It’s not grey, either.

It’s green.

Thick green vines push their way up and around the rocks, growing in jagged spaces where there was once a skull; green shrubs crowd around the base of the waterfall, the water now slowed to a steady trickle and ending in a clean, safe pool. Rows of green plants stand together in the shade of the tall rocks, growing up towards the light, supported by thin, strong poles obviously reclaimed from car parts.

It’s Keeper who stumbles this time, grasping hold of Miss Giddy for balance as she stares ahead, her eyes filling with tears. Giddy holds on to her, standing still and letting the sight wash over them both, until Keeper lets out a gruff sniffle and insists they continue. They have to make sure the girls haven’t messed up her seeds, after all.

Keeper had cultivated seedlings in skulls and in old shoes, in scraps of machinery and the pockets of clothing, and, more often than not, the seedlings had died on the road. A hundred times, she’d had to choose between saving what precious seeds remained, or trying to grow something again. Now, as they approach the Citadel, the two women see that scarcity is no longer a concern: new fruits hang dense and heavy off the plants in the outside field. The place is fenced off to keep out animals, but a bucket full of ripe fruits hangs off the entrance gate, with a second, smaller bucket below it for people to return seeds.

There’s the Dag, ambling between the rows of plants, pruning shears hanging from her belt and a baby strapped to her back. It’s Keeper that drags Miss Giddy closer and leans over to make faces at the baby: it chuckles, and the Dag looks around, finds no-one nearby, and turns back to smile down at her child.

In the shade of the lower garages, they find Capable, long hair piled up into intricate braids on her head, her face smudged with grease. She’s never stopped wanting to learn new things, Giddy realises, watching her tighten up a truck’s engine under Furiosa’s close gaze. The boys around her have washed their faces, and some are growing out their hair: Giddy looks up from the engine to see Keeper grinning at one child, who is watching Capable and twisting his own hair into short, tight braids.

Cheedo is upstairs in one of the old throne rooms, surrounded by even younger children: they’re running around and climbing all over her and each other. As the two women watch, she leads a few of the children over to a corner full of cushions, and has one select a book. Toast is hanging back, obviously unsure, and Cheedo holds out the book for her to take: as Toast sinks down onto a cushion, two children immediately pile into her lap. It looks to be a familiar routine: Cheedo leaves the children, now attentively listening, with Toast, and runs after several more who are chasing each other in circles around the space, roughhousing with them until the lot of them fall into a pile.

Miss Giddy looks up to see Keeper watching her, a soft, open smile on her face. Keeper tugs her closer, and presses a warm kiss to the corner of her mouth, to her cheek, to the side of her nose. Giddy wants to flap a hand at her, to insist that this isn’t her doing, that it’s the girls’ - Furiosa’s courage and Angharad’s fire, all of their strong kindnesses weaving together to form a home - but she knows Keeper will only roll her eyes, and so she stays quiet: leans in to her instead, kisses her right back.

Miss Giddy feels she might burst with love: watching her girls, leading; seeing them cultivating life and a community; seeing them growing something new. She leans her forehead against Keeper’s soft hair, watches the children laugh as Toast makes sweeping gestures with her hands, and thinks: for all these years, the two of them have worked so hard to grow new and beautiful things. They’ve cultivated courage in these young, brave girls; they’ve seen green plants come from old, dried-up seeds. With laughter surrounding her, and with her lover’s hand in hers, Miss Giddy smiles, and wonders what they’ll all grow next.

***

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Second Generation](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8026099) by [KeeperofSeeds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeeperofSeeds/pseuds/KeeperofSeeds)




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